A 25 year old heart constantly looking for it's next destination, it's next place to land, it's next Great Adventure. A heart that seeks beauty, treasures the past and eagerly anticipates the future.

I wish I could be a good blogger. A blogger who actually follows up on all the post ideas that she thinks of and who blogs things in chronological order, and shares travel diaries after trips and Friendsgiving posts before Thanksgiving is officially over.

But you know what? I’m not, and that’s okay. Because blogging to me is simply about releasing emotions. It’s about driving down the road and hearing a song and putting the words in my head and the feelings in my heart to paper (or you know, the internet). It’s about simply releasing these words into a place that is far bigger than the four corners of my mind.

Usually my blog posts come about because I bottle my emotions for far, far too long and then music, hearing a simple song, breaks my heart quite literally in half. There are some songs that just get me. Or I get them, I can never tell for sure. It’s almost like there are certain songs, and certain chords, that pull on my heartstrings until I can’t hold my emotions back anymore.

But guess what? This time I’m trying something new. Instead of breaking first, I’m writing. And I have so many thoughts.

This year has been a crazy season in my life. I’m looking back now, in December, and realizing that I never truly understood what it meant when those older than me told me to cherish the time that I have now, in this present moment, because growing up makes everything pass by more quickly than ever.

It seems like just a few weeks ago that I made my one big New Years resolution. And now, after 11 months, I’ve decided to break it.

Here’s the thing.

My New Years resolution was a travel goal. If you know me, then you know that it’s my passion to adventure and to explore, and I have a job that gives me the incredible opportunity to travel the world. I’ve found that it’s both a blessing and a curse to work for an airline. The blessing is that travel doesn’t break the bank, and the curse is that it puts an insatiable taste for adventure in your soul. At least, it does for me.

Last January, I decided that I wanted to see more. I had been working at American Airlines for a year and a half by then and I’d tested the waters of standby travel and decided that I couldn’t waste my benefits and that I had to do more. I made a goal: 12 months, 12 trips. It didn’t matter if they were big or small, I was going to get out and explore at least once a month.

And I did. With the exception of the month of August where I was part of a wedding shower, bridal shower, bachelorette party and wedding, I’ve gone on at least one trip per month. (I actually did plan a day-trip in August where my flight got cancelled right after I got through security because of the weather, but we don’t have to talk about that.)

You guys, I’ve flown 56,584 miles around the world this year. That’s 2.3x around the entire EARTH. I’m very proud of myself, but there’s also something else. Something that’s been lingering in the back of my mind. I’ve tried to push it down because I didn’t want to face the facts. That I was exploring to my hearts content, seeing places that other people only dreamed about, and at the end of the day. I wasn’t fulfilled.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have LOVED traveling this year. From Japan to London to Milwaukee to Maine to Lisbon. It’s been incredible. My camera roll currently holds 26,000+ photos and I look back at them sometimes and can’t actually believe that I’ve been able to see what I have in my lifetime. I don’t take the ability to travel for granted, and I never will.

But last week, I had one of the lowest days of my life. I can remember the tears running down my face as a friend heard me hurting and became a listening ear to my pain. She didn’t judge me or try to fix me, she simply listened. And I appreciate that more than words can say.

I think it all started with my previous post. It’s like a tiny little match lit with those words I wrote and I realized that this year, traveling has been my way of escape. It’s hard for me to talk about traveling when I get home. It’s almost like I want to bottle those moments away for myself only. Like when I’m traveling, I’m a different person.

I read something today that really put this year into perspective.

“She was the tide, always drifting in and out of the lives of those who loved her, eternally indecisive, unable to discern whether she enjoyed the solidity and safety of land, or the wild freedom of the ocean.”

-Beau Taplin // W i l d O c e a n

My heart craves adventure. And even though I wouldn’t change this year at all, I feel like I need to re-evaluate. I’ve been drifting, in and out of those moments of wild freedom and I’ve realized that it’s not enough to block out the fears and the unfulfilled desires that I have when I get back home. I don’t want my passion of traveling to become a hiding place. A place that seems magical to those on the outside, who only see brief moments captured in time on my social media feed.

And so I’ve decided, I’m okay with breaking this goal with one month left in the running. I’ve been learning that my stubbornness doesn’t always lead me to the best decisions. I’ve been learning how to listen to my fears instead of pushing them away. I don’t know all the answers. I don’t know what will happen in the next week or month, or year. But I know one thing. I know that I’m human. And that it’s okay to hurt sometimes. And that every single thing happens for a reason.

It’s time to trust, and to explore my heart a little bit, and to accept the people, the situations, and the dreams and the disasters that God puts in my way.

It’s that time of the year again where it’s finally feeling like fall in the south and the leaves are changing colors and I’m in a sweater everyday that it’s under 70°. And along with that changing of the season, my heart always constricts a little. I don’t talk about it much, but fall brings up a lot of memories from the past that I can forget in almost every other season. And lately, I’ve come to realize that the wind rushing in through the windows as I’m making my way home after a long day at work, and the song that hits my heartstrings so hard that I put it on repeat for the rest of the drive home makes those feelings come rushing back. And then I realize that I’ve pent up those feelings for such a good long while that they’re bursting at the seams. The seams of my heart and the seams of my mind. And I find that it’s always at the most inconvenient time that these thoughts come, and suddenly words and whole paragraphs of sentences upon sentences are stringing themselves along in my mind, begging to be written down.

Because when I can’t talk about things, I write about them.

And so as soon as I pull into my parking space, I’m scrambling to furiously record those sentences and sometimes I post them and a lot of the times I don’t.

But I’ve decided to post them tonight for some reason. Because I’ve realized that even sometimes, just writing them down for myself isn’t enough.

Here’s what hit me hard. (Besides the cover of I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by Sleeping at Last that came out of nowhere and stirred up all my feelings.)

I met a friend this weekend that I’ve only ever talked to online and I took a chance and set up a meet with her and we found that we have a ton in common and we even look alike so we’re basically twins. Throughout the night, the conversation flowed and we talked about everything and nothing and suddenly we were talking about relationships past and present and she asked me…

“Do you even want to get married?”

I’m not sure exactly what thought came first. The clarity of the one glaring word in my mind, an absolute, positive “YES” or the sudden anxiety and burst of trepidation and the question that sang violently throughout my whole being. “Do I give off the impression that I don’t want to?”

Let’s start at the beginning. Here’s the background of my previous relationship.

Girl meets boy at college. Boy and girl fall in love and date for almost 3 years. Boy and girl unknowingly grow apart. Boy breaks up with girl. Girl doesn’t realize that breaking up is the best thing that’s ever happened to her. Girl realizes that three years of her life are gone. Three years of shared hopes and shared dreams are suddenly over. Girl cries over boy for entirely too long.

It took me so long to realize that I didn’t miss that particular boy, but that I simply missed having that “someone.” The one who will listen and talk to you about those things people say they care about but don’t, really. It took me so long to realize that the tears I cried and the heartache I faced had more to do with the conflicting desire of having someone to share my life with and the sinking feeling of dread that something could happen again and it would all repeat itself.

Allow me to clarify.

It’s been years since that relationship ended but in those years, some pretty solid walls built up over time. It was on a night like tonight that I realized that I was scared. So scared. Of repeating the past. Of making new memories and hopes and dreams and then losing them.

And you can tell me that “You can’t be afraid to lose someone so much that you don’t even try.” But my heart will still tighten at the words. Trust me. Because these are words that I whisper to myself over and over again, trying to convince myself.

It’s a funny thing, when you look back and years and years have passed and you’re caught up in life. Caught up in traveling and exploring and living life in the moment, and loving it. And you think back to the person you used to be and it’s like looking at a doppelgänger who may look exactly like you but is completely different, inside.

Since my relationship ended, I’ve had so many incredible opportunities cross my path. I’ve worked hard and I’ve gotten an amazing job. I’ve traveled to foreign lands and fallen in love with mountains, and waterfalls, and the sound of foreign languages intertwining and that wonderful overwhelming feeling of stepping out of the plane and arriving in a different country for the first time. I’ve learned about myself and now I enjoy so many different hobbies and my world has grown SO MUCH more than it ever could have if I would have still been in that relationship. And I’m happy. I’m so happy with the life that I have today. And I’m so grateful for those incredible opportunities and the memories that I’ll have forever because of them.

And yet, the wind blows, and the song plays, and the memories come crashing and the question is asked, and with it the feeling that hits me so intensely, the feeling of how much I don’t want to be alone. And I can’t imagine that someone, even someone I’ve never met, could ever think that I don’t crave a “someone” more than I crave adventure, and independence, and the happiness that comes with the life that I have today.

In Pride and Prejudice, I’m more Jane than Elizabeth. My deepest feelings don’t show. Maybe I don’t show the world how much I crave a partner to walk through life with. Maybe I’m so independent, and so busy, and my life is so full of adventure that people don’t realize that I’m hurting, too. Maybe I’m so stubborn and so fearful of looking like the “desperate” one that I shy away from opportunities.

In the 21st century, your online presence is your “highlight reel”. It’s not the lonely thoughts that swirl around your head at night and the tears you cry. It’s the good times and the best times and the times you look pretty and the views you see across the world that you want everyone else to see too.

So maybe I’m writing this blog because I don’t want to be fake. I don’t want to pretend it doesn’t hurt when it does. I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I don’t want want to miss out on a Mr. Bingley because I don’t share my feelings openly like a certain Ms. Bennett.

Maybe my words will inspire. Maybe somewhere out there, even weeks or months from this chilly November evening, someone out there will need these words too.

And maybe I just needed to write them down for me. To remind myself that it’s possible to conquer an overwhelming fear, and that walls don’t crumble without a little work.

So here’s to being real, and being lonely, and not forgetting that God has a plan for every little detail of my life.

Y’all! I love Fridays! Probably because I always have an early start to the weekend with a four day workweek schedule, but there’s also just something about the day itself. I call it That Friday Feeling and I’ve made a little playlist HERE of 5 of the top songs that give me Friday Feels. (You can also use these on Mondays to hype up your week 😉) OKAY, Okay I’ll stop. I know Monday isn’t a word that should even be breathed today.

Exactly one year ago today I experienced a night that would change me forever. Looking back, I couldn’t know that a full year later, I would remember this night as the defining moment, one of the paradigm shifts of my life.

The Day: August 30, 2016

The Location: Iceland

I’m not sure if it was the mysterious mist that clang beautifully to the mountains, or the small dirt pass that ran between them, but something in me changed that night. A short hike on a narrow path led us to one of the most serene places I had ever seen.
Built in 1923, Seljavallalaug Pool is the oldest swimming pool in Iceland. Walking through the mountains only to come upon a pool in the middle of nowhere is quite a feeling. Sat beside the pool is a small concrete changing room with pegs on the wall and not much else. Although the pool is manmade, the geothermal water that heats the pool trickles down the mountains from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano.

It was getting late, around 8:30 PM, and the mist was sweeping lower and lower down the mountain and covering the valley beside the pool. We were huddled in the corner of the pool where the hot water was coming in from one lonely pipe. To be honest, we were in an almost 100 year old pool so the algae/slime sitch was real, but I realized that day that the world is so much more beautiful than I had ever imagined.

I realized that I want to see as much of it’s beauty as I possibly can before my time on this earth is finished. And I realized that above all else, God created these mountains, this volcano, and this moment, and He knew that one day, a girl from Texas would be covered in algae, slightly shivering and admiring the beauty that He created. What an incredible God who created the universe and the galaxies. Who filled the oceans that I dream of and who spoke the beauties of this world into existence. I love Him with all of my heart. And despite the hardships, the trials, and the messy days in my life, I will praise Him. I will thank him for the beauty He created for my eyes to see. I will thank him for allowing me to experience more of His beauty than I ever thought would be possible. And I will chase His beauty to the furthest corners of the earth.

XOXO,

C

P. S. Tbh I almost forgot how to blog, I’m so rusty. Here’s to turning 25, to adulting, and to chasing His beauty!

I remember the way the stars looked when we stopped on the side of the road and leaned our faces out the car window on our midnight search for the Northern Lights.
I remember the way I felt that week. Like adventure was always just beyond my fingertips and all I could think was to reach reach reach and take all I could wrap my fingers around.
I remember the rushing of the water as it poured over the falls and the way my breath froze over and over and over again until we had to go back even when we could have stayed there forever.
I remember the city streets and the colorful buildings and the view from the top of the church tower as we took in all we could and pushed it deep deep deep into our memories so we would never forget this moment.
I remember the way my heart ached when I thought about leaving the only foreign country that actually felt like home because it’s been aching since I’ve gone.
I remember these things as the weather gets colder here and I long for the brisk clean air and a long drive down a singular highway and the greatest desire to be lost but somehow found among the beauty and the stars and the dancing lights and the magic of it all.